The Pitters' Place

In recent years the Academy seemed to have been coming around in terms of appreciating slightly off-center work, straying from the contrived and boring (The Artist, Dallas Buyers Club, No Country for Old Men). But this year looks like they're back to their old ways. Absolute fucking disaster with the nominations. But, here they are, and I've bolded my pick for winner.


Best Picture
Birdman
Boyhood
Selma
The Theory of Everything
The Imitation Game
The Grand Budapest Hotel
American Sniper
Whiplash

Actress in a Leading Role
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild
Marion Cotillard, Two Days One Night

Actor in a Leading Role
Michael Keaton, Birdman
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper

Directing
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Birdman
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game
Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher

Actress in a Supporting Role
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Emma Stone, Birdman
Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
Meryl Streep, Into the Woods
Laura Dern, Wild

Actor in a Supporting Role
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
Edward Norton, Birdman
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
Robert Duvall, The Judge

Foreign Language Film
Ida
Leviathan
Tangerines
Wild Tales
Timbuktu

Writing - Adapted Screenplay
Graham Moore, The Imitation Game
Damien Chazelle, Whiplash
Anthony McCarten, The Theory of Everything
Jason Hall, American Sniper
Paul Thomas Anderson, Inherent Vice

Writing - Original Screenplay
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris and Armando Bo, Birdman
Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler
E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, Foxcatcher

Cinematography
Emmanuel Lubezki, Birdman
Roger Deakins, Unbroken
Robert D. Yeoman, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Dick Pope, Mr. Turner
Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lynzewski, Ida

Music - Original Score
Hans Zimmer, Interstellar
Alexandre Desplat, The Imitation Game
Johann Johannsson, The Theory of Everything
Alexandre Desplat, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Gary Yershon, Mr Turner

Makeup and Hairstyling
Foxcatcher
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Guardians of the Galaxy

Costume Design
Colleen Atwood, Into the Woods
Anna B. Sheppard, Maleficent
Milena Canonero, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Jacqueline Durran, Mr. Turner
Mark Bridges, Inherent Vice

Music - Original Song (Haven't seen/heard any of these yet)
“Glory" by Common and John Legend, Selma
“Lost Stars" by Gregg Alexander, Danielle Brisebois, Nick Lashley and Nick Southwood, Begin Again
“Everything Is Awesome" by Shawn Patterson, The LEGO Movie
“I'm Not Gonna Miss You," by Glen Campbell, Glenn Campbell: I'll Be Me
“Grateful," Beyond the lights

Visual Effects
Interstellar
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Guardians of the Galaxy
Captain America: Winter Soldier
X-Men: Days of Future Past

Film Editing
Sandra Adair, Boyhood
Tom Cross, Whiplash
William Goldenberg, The Imitation Game
Joel Cox and Gary Roach, American Sniper
Barney Pilling, The Grand Budapest Hotel


And blah blah blah. Full list here: http://www.imdb.com/awards-central/osca ... cd_noms_sm

This is much more in line with what the nominations should look like:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/ ... e-20150115

I've often felt that "best performance by an actor portraying a real person" should be a separate category. Just because it feels like so often, the guy who wins best actor was portraying a a real person. And it makes sense why he would, too; it's much easier to be impressed by how much someone can "transform" into another person than it is to be impressed by acting in general.

Good point. I tend to prefer "fiction" actors myself. You're right; when someone's portraying a real person, the actor tends to come off as kind of trying too hard to get some mannerism down perfectly, whereas the "fiction" actor is being more organic and creating those mannerisms himself. That said, Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything got Stephen Hawking's mannerisms down absolutely flawlessly. It does say something to his talent for that, but I'd still prefer the best "fiction" actor to him. And this year that was Jake Gyllenhaal.

Oh, speaking of actors portraying real people, Bradley Cooper in American Sniper intrigues me greatly. I'm seeing it tonight and will report back.

What in the world are you talking about? Most of those seem pretty off-center to me. I wouldn't have heard of most without coming on here.

The only issue I have is how the hell do you nominate "Everything is Awesome" for best original song but not "The Lego Movie" for best animated picture? If anything, it should be the other way around. The song is fun and catchy, but really it only works in the context of the film. It also doesn't stand a chance at winning. I didn't like Lego, but I still think it reserves a nod.

I'm also confused as to the organization of the "In a perfect world" link. What is the "replaced" section? For instance I see for best picture they have Replaced: Nightcrawler. But that isn't one of the original nominees. So is it replacing one of them? Adding on? If the former, shouldn't list that and then in parentheses identify the movie it replaced. If the latter, why not just put the new ones in bold? Seems like the person didn't think through their listing in that regard. (I see now. And I disagree that HTTYD2 should be removed. Big Hero 6 would have been the better choice for removal in my opinion).

It seems in the article the ones replacing are called "Replaced" and the ones removed are called "Removed".

And from what I've been reading, the song from The LEGO Movie actually has a lot of steam to win. It's a favorite right now.

The only one of the nominated Best Pictures that is off-center, to me, is Birdman (and not a coincidence that it's my favorite of the bunch). And it's really not THAT off-center.

You've got Boyhood, which is about a kid growing up. The reason it's getting a lot of attention is in its unorthodox production; they shot on one day a year over the past twelve or so years, following the actor growing up as well as his character. The content of the movie was very boring.

Then you've got Selma, some emotional bullshit Martin Luther King biopic. Yawn.

The Theory of Everything is another emotional piece about Stephen Hawking.

The Imitation Game is about Alan Turing cracking the Nazi code in WW2. Hoo-rah.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is great. I love Wes Anderson. But it is indeed Wes Anderson and we all already know his style by now. He does what he does extremely well and this is probably his best, but it's not what I would consider off-center.

American Sniper is yet another biopic. It fell a bit short.

Whiplash is the only one of the bunch I haven't seen. And it looks stupid as fuck. It's about a jazz drum instructor and his students. Ick.


So I'm not saying they're all bad movies, they're all just kind of boring nominations. When you have interesting and thought-provoking movies like Nightcrawler and Foxcatcher (yes, another biopic) out there, the Academy could have done better.